House January 6 committee subpoenas Trump campaign leadership and associates

The House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol on Monday issued a new slate of subpoenas to top-level members of the 2020 Trump reelection campaign, as well as individuals who promoted disproven conspiracies about the election and reportedly worked to find ways to overturn the results.

This latest blitz of subpoenas signifies that the committee is focusing in part on the connection between the promotion of false theories about election fraud and the crowd of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol and disrupted the certification of the election after they listened to speeches from the former president and his allies.

From the Trump reelection effort, the committee demanded records and depositions from campaign manager William Stepien, senior adviser Jason Miller and executive assistant Angela McCallum. The committee  also sent subpoenas to former President Trump's attorney John Eastman, who The Washington Post reported advised Mr. Trump incorrectly that his vice president had the ability to reject electors from states and could overturn Joe Biden's victory.  

The panel is also seeking information by subpoena from Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump's one-time national security advisor who is believed to have attended an Oval Office meeting where attendees discussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency and invoking some national security emergency powers to keep Mr. Trump in the White House, according to multiple reports. The committee also sent a subpoena to Bernard Kerik, an associate of Rudolph Giuliani, who reportedly funded command centers for the effort to overturn the 2020 election results.

"In the days before the January 6th attack, the former President's closest allies and advisors drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes," Congressman Bennie Thompson, the committee's chair, said in a statement. "The Select Committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot, and who paid for it all."

Mr. Trump has claimed executive privilege over much of the information the committee has requested and is attempting to fight the panel's subpoenas in court. Several of his associates have failed to comply with the committee's demands.

Thompson said on Friday that he had rejected privilege claims from Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, on Friday.

A lawyer for Steve Bannon made similar claims of privilege and refused to cooperate, but the committee and then the full House found Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress and asked the Justice Department to prosecute him. Asked Monday whether the Justice Department would prosecute Bannon, Attorney General Merrick Garland said there is an ongoing examination of "the facts and the law" but did not indicate which way the department was leaning. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi created the House select committee earlier this year to investigate the January 6 attack, when thousands of Trump supporters descended on the Capitol as Congress counted the electoral votes, a largely ceremonial final step affirming President Biden's victory. Lawmakers were sent fleeing amid the riot, which led to the deaths of five people and the arrests of hundreds more. Mr. Trump, who encouraged his supporters to "walk over" to the Capitol during the Stop the Steal rally, was impeached by the House one week later for inciting the riot but was later acquitted by the Senate.